POVERTY, A FACTOR IN EDUCATION?

by Cliff Jones

THE Labour MP for Riverside in Liverpool does not like the report from the Tory dominated Commons Education Committee that downplays poverty as a factor in education. I taught in that constituency for eleven years. If there was a single dominant factor at work it was poverty. That had been the case for a very long time.

Local people rolled up their sleeves and began to build the then largest housing co-operative in Western Europe. I designed and obtained government approval for a Community Studies GCSE to support young people working on committees designing that co-operative. I felt so professionally happy.

The Tory government abolished it. Young people were to be taught only what government wanted them to be taught in ways that government approved and assessed only on what government wished them to be assessed. There is only one F in Ofsted.

When Tories talk about catching up they set the rules of the educational game in which young people AND teachers must participate and then tie together the shoe laces of some but not others. This is why I was a founder member of the Liverpool group of teachers examining the impact of unemployment on the curriculum. Long gone. Only for a while were we listened to.

A society that is more equal is what is needed. A society that is more equal is both healthier and happier. Alongside that must be an educational system that is fulfilling. Mere measurement of performance does not fulfil.

I admit that I have not yet read the Report that is causing all the fuss. I also admit that, as a member of the working party that produced the Report on Political Literacy in 1978, I have, since the arrival of Thatcher in 1979, failed to do enough to counter the effect of policies that have widened gaps in society. Widen those gaps and you produce poverty. It is a big factor in education.

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What chances do the Tories have in Batley and Spen by-election? A pollster gives his verdict

The Tories will be hoping to take a seat held by Labour since 1997

By Alexandra Rogers on YORKSHIRE LIVE website - 1 JUN 2021

When the Tories talk about how tough the Batley by election is going to be for the party to win, it probably isn't solely a lesson in expectations management - for once.

Batley and Spen is a highly unpredictable contest for the Conservatives, as pollsters and psephologists know despite its erroneous categorisation as a "Red Wall" seat that now forms the Tories' stomping ground.

One such expert is James Johnson, a private pollster at JL Partners who, as a former adviser to Theresa May while she was prime minister, knows all about how the party will target Batley and Spen.

Mr Johnson describes the West Yorkshire constituency as "Red Wall 2.0 - that next tier of Labour held seats... that could go Conservative".

What separates Batley from Hartlepool, where the Tories pulled of a resounding victory earlier this month, is that the Brexit party vote share in the 2019 general election was low by comparison.

In Hartlepool, it accounted for 25 per cent of the vote share. Naturally, what happened in that by election was votes transferred from the Brexit party to the Conservatives to allow the party to cross the finish line.

"One of the reasons Batley didn't fall in 2019 and is 2.0 rather than 1.0 is because it doesn't have quite as a high a Brexit party vote share, it has more people from different ethnic groups rather than people from white British backgrounds, and it is in an area that is more suspicious perhaps of the Conservatives," Mr Johnson explains.

It's in the second tier which is a much harder challenge for the Conservatives."

National issues such as the success of the vaccine rollout and the appeal of Boris Johnson will undoubtedly help the Tories, but Mr Johnson's message to the party if they want to win is "get local".

"Everything will be informed by research on the ground," he says.

"In Hartlepool, you saw such a focus on jobs in the area and on Ben Houchen, because their research was telling them that they would like more jobs in the area and that people liked Ben Houchen.

"The Tories will emphasise jobs and investment, there will be reference to the vaccine rollout and we'll probably see this message about voting for change - really positioning the Conservatives as the change candidate to residents who feel like Labour have represented them for a long time but not done much for them."

The 'get local' message might have been missed by the Tories, who have selected Ryan Stephenson, a Leeds councillor and chair of the West Yorkshire Conservatives as its candidate.

Some may believe the importance of having a local candidate has been exaggerated, but Mr Johnson is not one of them.

"The unspoken rule for successful by-elections is you are helped enormously by having a local candidate," he says.

"And that was actually one of the problems for both parties in Hartlepool. There was a lot of kick back that neither candidate was not from the area - the Labour candidate was seen as second-hand goods from Stockton and the Conservative candidate was from North Yorkshire.

"If we're in a situation where one candidate is local and one candidate isn't, that is a real advantage to whoever has got that local candidate."

Labour too faces a battle to retain Batley and Spen, where its majority has declined to number just 3,525 votes going into this election. Their difficulties could well translate into success for the Tories.

The Conservatives face one main threat in Mr Halloran, while the Labour party faces several: the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and of course, leftwing firebrand and party exile George Galloway.

"If Labour are losing votes to the Lib Dems of Greens, who had a good showing in the locals, or if Labour are losing votes to a a George Galloway candidacy, then that is going to be difficult for Labour," Mr Johnson says.

"Even if a Lib Dem or Green candidate isn't particularly good, or out there or visible, their very presence on the ballot paper does take away votes - we saw this in the 2019 general election where actually, some of the Lib Dems weren't actually campaigning that much."

Regarding George Galloway, Mr Johnson says: "Lots of people are very fed up.

"A big reason why people voted Conservative in Hartlepool was because they were fed up with the status quo and wanted a change.

"It is very easy to see George Galloway becoming that person for people who don't like Labour but don't want to vote Conservative. Although he didn't do particularly well in Scotland where he last stood, he is noisy, he is on the ground and he also puts a lot of effort in - he doesn't just sit back and pop up and do a few visits, he really goes for it.

"And he doesn't need to take that many votes from Labour to cause a problem. It really could be just a matter of a couple of thousand of votes and you would see it coming perilously close for Labour."

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Labour’s Scottish Problem. by Les May

IN the early 1970s I worked on an island in the Outer Hebrides. The people who lived there were not the ‘Industrial Proletariat’ so beloved by those of a romantic turn of mind, but small scale ‘entrepreneurs’ who made their living working on their family ‘croft’ and organised into ‘townships’ which annually allocated to each crofter strips of Machair land on which was grown a mixture of rye and black-oats which was cut in late summer to provide winter forage for a few cattle. With sheep summered on the poorer land on the east of the island and wintered on the land close to the house which had been used for hay in summer it provided a living, but not a very luxurious one. My two closest neighbours lived in two room, single story houses with a roof of thatch made from Marram Grass. One had carpets laid on the bare earth floor. Both got water from a tap outside their house

I’ve been back a few times since and, as well as paying my respects at the graves of some of the people I knew, I’ve seen the much greater prosperity enjoyed by the Islanders. The single track road with passing places has gone, there’s a causeway linking six of the islands, there are jobs for women and the two room thatched houses are museum pieces. No wonder Scots voted to stay in the EU. (Incidentally you will see the same improved infra-structure on the islands of Madeira and Tenerife.)

At the time the Scottish Nationalists were described as ‘Tartan Tories’ and the constituency returned a Labour MP. Now it returns both a Scottish Nationalist MSP to Holyrood and an MP to London . The SNP has morphed into, what is in many respects, a social democratic party. Is it possible that Labour and the SNP are fighting over much the same political territory in Scotland, and the SNP is winning? Perhaps Labour should start asking why the SNP has been so successful at invading its territory in Scotland.

Is it possible that the SNP is drawing significant support not for enthusiasm for a ‘go it alone Scotland’, but for the party’s domestic policies? Tory governments in particular have tried to force on Scotland domestic policies which have been less than popular over the border, e.g. water privatisation and the introduction of the Poll Tax a year before it was forced on England. Repeated attempts were made by the Tories to find a way of privatising Caledonian MacBrayne, the ferry service which serves as a lifeline to 22 Scottish Islands. It is now a subsidiary of holding company owned by the Scottish Government.

Social care is funded differently in Scotland than in England. If you think that’s because we English are paying for it, think again. All governments have a limited amount of money to spend; Holyrood just makes choices which are different to those made in London. That does not mean everything is rosy over the border, education and health are areas which have drawn criticism.

At some time in the not too distant future Labour is going to have to confront the fact that the Scottish Parliament may vote to hold a second referendum on independence. It has a choice, it can fly the ‘Union’ flag along with the Tories and oppose a second vote or it can support it and risk there being a ‘Yes’ vote, Scotland becoming independent and no more Scottish MPs in the House of Commons which would effectively seal a succession of Tory government for the rest of time.

Johnson is a chancer. At present he is doing all he can to bypass the Scottish Parliament by means of a veto on its scope for action and by taking on powers which rightly belong with the Scots. The signs are that he is hoping that he can block a second referendum by legal means. He may think this will ‘save the Union’, but if he does he will kill it because it will no longer be a union by consent.

It has been estimated that about a third of Scots actively support independence, a third actively oppose it and the remainder are more ambivalent. Even if these estimates are not very close to the true figures it does suggest that there is some scope for persuading more of the electorate to vote to remain part of the UK. That persuading can only be done by Labour, if only for the selfish reason I alluded to above.

It was a Labour government that in 1998 introduced the Scotland Act which led to the setting up of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Why then is Labour apparently doing so little to oppose Johnson’s power grab? By doing little or nothing it risks being tarred with the same brush as the Tories in the minds of the Scottish electorate. Labour could work with SNP MPs in the House of Commons to form a government. Without the Union and the Scottish MPs it brings there seems to me little chance that we will ever have anything but a succession of Tory governments.

Nicola Sturgeon is a demonstrably competent woman which suggests she is no fool. She must be aware that an ‘independent’ Scotland will face all sorts of difficulties; a long land border with England and the question of what currency it would adopt are just two obvious ones. There’s also the fact that much though she may say she wants to be part of the EU, it’s not a ‘done deal’ and its an aspiration for the future. Perhaps a greater degree of independence within the Union could begin to look a more attractive option. There’s an opening for Labour there.

https://theferret.scot/scottish-water-public-ownership/

NV can no longer embed links in the text of articles. To use this link copy the full text of the link into your browser (Startpage, DuckDuckGo or Google) and search in the usual way.

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Making sense of the elections by Brian Bamford

IN THIS weekend's editorial in the Financial Times the editor writes:

'An old rule of politics is that British governments tend to lose midterm by-elections. That makes the resounding defeat of Labour in the centre-left stronghold of Hartlepool by the Conservative party in power for 11 years all the more extraordidary... Extrapolating too much from a town that is the 10th most economically deprived and one of the most pro-Brexit in England is unwise. Yet coupled with the early signs that Labour lost ground to the Tories in council votes too, Thursday's elections in England have provided a boost to the government - and left the oppostion searching questions.'

One thing that is odd in this context is that while in the North Boris Johnson is so popular in places like Hartlepool in the North East and yet he is almost persona non-grata north of the border in Scotland. I know an anarcho-syndicalist retired miner from the North East who voted Tory at the last General Election because of his support for Brexit. Yet in Scotland there are reports that some Tories voted tactically for Labour to try to keep the SNP out.

The 'i' newspaper had an article by its political editor, Nigel Morris, titled 'Labour in turmoil: "shattering" results plunge party into crisis' arguing 'The poor showing reopened wounds within Labour ranks as the party as the left blamed Sir Keir's lack of policy direction for its slump in support, while leadership loyalists said the party was still suffering an overhang from Jeremy Corbyn's time in charge.'

The Labour Party last 'Super Thursday' seemed to lack a serious strategy depending on sneers about sleeze and the claims about a 'chumochracy'; this led John McDonnell to write a post-election column in the 'i' entitled 'No wonder we lost: there was a vacuum instead of a vision'.

The FT editorial I referred to earlier suggests:

'Confounding Labour's urgings that it is time for a change after a decade of Toryism, many voters perceive this as a new government. Johnson has not just disassociated himself from the Cameron and May admisitrations but the Thatcherite past ....[and] has shifted Tory politics away from its former devotion to the free market.'

The conclusion is that there has been demographic shifts in politics and not just in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK. Currently the expections of the centre-left in Germany now depend on the Greens more than the Social Democrats. Some like Boris Johnson are managing to combine right-wing popularism with the offer of more public spending. In this way the Johnson government appears to offer a breach with the past. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out in the long term.

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Sleaze And Dynamic Alternatives. by Les May

MY Dad was born in Walsden, which is hardly deepest Yorkshire, and moved west at the age of two to spend all his life in Lancashire. But he liked to parade his ‘Yorkshireness’ by quoting what he claimed was the county motto of I’ tha’ dos owt’ for nowt, do it fo’ thi’ sen. Not exactly an ennobling aspiration, but a reminder that when anyone hands favours in cash or kind to a politician or their party, something is expected in return.

Boris Johnson may be telling the truth that he (eventually) paid for his change of décor, but if it is found that he initially approached someone else to foot the bill, there will be a quest to find out what favours Johnson bestowed in return. And irrespective of what emerges the aura of sleaze will envelope Johnson for the rest of his time in public life.

But even if those ‘favours’ turn out to be on an epic scale, will it be enough to tarnish the Tories enough to lead to the start of that long slide in public distrust which led to the demise of the John Major government’s support and his election defeat in 1997?

Speaking on Saturday’s BBC programme, Dateline London, the political commentator Steve Richards pointed out that in 1997 there was what he called a ‘dynamic alternative’ to Major and the Tories in the shape of Tony Blair.

Given what we now know about Blair it is easy to forget the enthusiasm and hope with which Labour people greeted his becoming Prime Minister with a huge mandate for change in the shape of his parliamentary majority. Whether you like Blair or not, Richard’s analysis is spot on.

So ultimately whether Johnson’s present little difficulties represent the beginning of the end for the Tories may depend on one thing; ‘Is Labour under Keir Starmer a dynamic alternative?’ Answers on a postage stamp please.

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Let a Great Assembly Be . . . ! | by Andy Wastling

Verse : 65 :

`Let a great Assembly be Of the fearless and the free On some spot of English ground Where the plains stretch wide around.'

The Masque of Anarchy

Percy Bysshe Shelley ( 1819 ) following the Peterloo Massacre of that year.

In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance.

Let a Great Assembly Be . . . ! | by Andrew Wastling

It's entirely understandable that a widespread national campaign is rapidly developing amongst campaign organisations , activists , academics and individuals. Patel might have inadvertently created a united front against this rogue government as an entirely unintended consequence.

It's heartening to read in yesterday's Independent that : More than 700 of the UK’s leading legal academics have signed a stinging open letter urging Boris Johnson to ditch draconian restrictions on the freedom to demonstrate, in one of the largest protests of its kind in decades. ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-bill-academics-letter-priti-patel-b1818695.html)

The attack on traditional Gypsy and Romany Travellers is straight out of the Tory Attack Handbook on New Age Travellers in the Public Order Bill of the 1980's which also generated a huge popular backlash. Some of us will also remember attending the huge and lively demonstration against the Criminal Justice Bill in the 1990's . The government is clearly expecting widespread expressions of popular discontent post Covid and are accordingly rigging the courts and legislature well in advance .

Murdoch of course has never forgiven Extinction Rebellion from preventing his newspapers being delivered and will no doubt have demanded an appropriate government response to ensure it won't happen again. Patel will as they say : Just be following ( Murdochs ) orders !

Unsurprisingly there are a large number of public petitions circulating on this huge attempt to marginalize and reduce the right to protest as follows:

House of Commons : Do Not Restrict our Rights to Peaceful Protest

https://petition.parliament.uk/signatures/108799139/signed

Friends , Families & Travellers : Stand Against Harsh New Laws for Roadside Camps

https://action.gypsy-traveller.org/page/78097/donate/1?locale=en-GB&en_chan=tw&ea.tracking.id=Twitter_crim_tres&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=Email%20To%20Target%20_%20Crim%20Trespass&en_ref=207204871

Netpol : Netpol's Charter For Freedom of Assembly Rights

https://netpol.org/charter/

38 Degrees : Protect the Freedom to protest

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/protect-the-freedom-to-protest

Liberty : Stop The Policing Bill

https://action.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/page/78339/petition/1?ea.tracking.id=twitter

Protect Everyone Bill : ( email your MP )

https://action.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/page/77270/action/1?ea.tracking.id=twitter

Global Justice Now : Defend the right to Protest

Defend the right to protest | Global Justice Now

Friends of the Earth : Defend Your Right to Protest

Add your name to defend the right to protest | Friends of the Earth

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We ain't got no swing; Except for the ring of the truncheon thing [1] | by Andrew Wastling

SUCCESSIVE generations of Britain's working class it would seem are destined to endure a double hammering on the anvil of Tory economic policy and the cosh of the police truncheon. This multi-generationalional masochism is in some cases entirely self inflicted by the apparent inability of elements of the working class to agitate, educate and organise at grassroots level to vote for candidates who represent their class interests (The infamous Working Class Tory voter) or to establish working models of self-government outside of, and independent to the terminally corrupt Parliamentary system ,

( The Non-Parliamentary Road to Socialism ).

This pantomime more akin to a Dario Fo farce than a mature fully functioning democracy is abley co-facilitated and enabled by a neutered Blue Labour bureaucratic class hunkered down in their Town Halls bunkers and a sycophantic & quisling mainstream media promoting a 24/7 pro-government propaganda news agenda narrative.

No one should be surprised that former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp is set to be appointed the Chairman of the BBC's board of directors after donating more than £400,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001 .It should come as no shock to any of us either that a rogue Johson administration will be expecting an imminent popular backlash and is pre-rigging the courts and legislature accordingly. Johnson after all bought the three water cannon he expected to have to deploy on the streets of London when he was Mayor way back in 2014 (although they were subsequently scrapped Johnson said later: We can’t use them at the moment. That is correct. We haven’t been given a general licence for their use. We will keep these devices in reserve and should there be another occasion when they might be a useful tool of crowd control, the Metropolitan police commissioner can make another application.)

More recently the arrest and ten thousand pound fine of a pensioner for organising a socially distanced protest in support of an increase on the paltry one per cent pay rise for NHS workers in Manchester, (Has GMP been consistent in handling protests during Covid? What police, protesters and Andy Burnham have to say... - Manchester Evening News) , and this weekend's effective banning of the vigil for Sarah Everard in Clapham by Metropolitan Police shows clearly which way the wind is blowing and the chilling effect it is set to have on future protests. The 1986 Public Order Act and the 1994 Criminal Justice Bill & Public Order Bill serve as just two reminders of how a reactionary state apparatus legislates to suppress not only political dissent but lifestyle choices such as New Age Travellers (The Battle of the Beanfield) and Britain's 1990's Warehouse & Acid House Counter-culture - both seen as a serious challenge to a moribund establishment by disaffected and creative youth.

This is merely history repeating itself as the state seeks once more to silence voices of dissent and prevent the free association of people as it has done for centuries from The Diggers of St.George's Hill in 1649, through to Peterloo, Red Clydeside, the 1984 Miners strike and the Poll Tax Riots of the 1990's and beyond.

The famous quote attributed to Emma Goldman: If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution seems likely to resonate loudly in Covid ravaged Britain as a government claiming to be Levelling Up might suddenly find the Levelling process goes in entirely an unexpected redistributionary direction. Britain's youth may be willing to accept curtailments to their individual freedoms & liberties this summer as a necessary precautionary measure to combat the transmission of Covid through our communities it is difficult to see how such draconian restrictions will be imposed or widely followed next summer (or the summer after that) without some kind of culture clash ensuing later if not sooner.

Local Public Space in Rochdale & the homeless

At the local level readers might want to ask their prospective ward councillors standing for public office in May what their personal views are on the anti-democratic measures lurking in the small print of Rochdale Councils Public Space Protection Order?

Local campaigners rejected the deeply flawed legislation on the grounds that:

The Council should not fine people who are homeless if they beg for money. We also believe banning people from giving out leaflets is a serious attack on our civil liberties. The other parts of the order are unworkable and will lead people, particularly young people, to be brought unnecessarily into the criminal justice system.

http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/pdf/2018-08-22-made-rochdale-town-centre-pspo-v2.pdf

It would be interesting to see how many councillors have actually even read the locally drafted legislation they voted for which can also be readily deployed against union members on a legitimate picket line or require campaigners to ask permission before handing out leaflets on a street stall or holding a demonstration in the town centre?

If they want our votes sometime before May 6 is probably a good time to put them on the spot The price of freedom truly is eternal vigilance!

In the meantime here's a summary of organisations calling for protection of the right to associate and protest:

Netpol:

Netpol have launched an urgent petition calling on the National Police Chiefs Council to adopt new guidelines to protect the right to protest – or explain why they refuse to do so. Add your name today. A Charter for Freedom of Assembly Rights | Netpol

Liberty:

In the coming weeks, MPs will vote again on the harmful Coronavirus Act – the biggest threat to civil liberties in a generation. Email your MP today and tell them to change course, scrap the Coronavirus Act, and replace it with a rights-focused approach, such as the Protect Everyone Bill. Liberty Human Rights

Amnesty International:

Amnesty International has condemed the conviction of Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél for “glorifying terrorism” and is calling on the Ministry of Justice in Spain to change the criminal code and defend freedom of expression.

Hasel has been sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment and six years’ disqualification from employment in the public sector. He has also been convicted of insulting the Crown and state institutions. In total, he will face a fine of almost 30,000 euros.

Esteban Beltrán, Director of Amnesty International Spain, said: “No one should face criminal prosecution for expressing themselves on social media or for singing something that may be distasteful or shocking. Expressions that do not clearly and directly incite violence should not be criminalised."

“Pablo Hasél’s imprisonment is an excessive and disproportionate restriction on his freedom of expression, but he is not alone in suffering the consequences of unjust laws: many other artists, journalists or activists have received heavy fines or long periods of exclusion from the public sector. It’s a sad consequence for our society: self-censorship for fear of repression.

If the articles of th“e Criminal Code are not amended, freedom of expression will continue to be silenced and artistic expression will continue to be restricted.”

* Source: Spain: Jailing of rapper is 'unjust and disproportionate' | Amnesty International UK

Green and Black Cross :

Provide volunteers able to help with legal matters arising from protest and actions only. An independent grassroots project set up in the spirit of mutual aid to support social and environmental struggles within the UK.

Excellent demonstration Bust cards can be downloaded from : Bustcard | Green and Black Cross

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APPENDIX :

[1].London Calling : The Clash ( Joe Strummer & Mick Jones ) 1979

EDITOR'S POSTSCRIPT:

BASED ON LIBCOM ACCOUNT.

Who is Pablo Hasél? And what is happening in Spain in regards to his case and the riots that followed?

Pablo Hasél is a 32 year old Catalan1 rapper and anti-fascist. As a rapper his songs generally focus on left-wing causes, armed struggle, and are frequently critical of the Spanish monarchy.2 The Spanish state has extremely retrograde laws regarding what may be thought of as ‘freedom of speech’. These include article 491 of the Spanish Penal code which calls for fines and prison sentences of up to two years for ‘Insults to the Crown’, and Article 578 which calls for similar punishment for ‘glorifying terrorism’. These laws are used disproportionately against people on the left and anarchists, while far-right individuals and neo-nazis are rarely if ever charged or sentenced to jail time.

Pablo Hasél has repeatedly run afoul of these laws. He has refused to censor his message and because of this he has been prosecuted for the content of his lyrics, especially his references to historical armed groups such as GRAPO3, and criticism of the king and the Royal family. In 2018 he was found guilty violating Article 578 and 492 and was ordered to enter into prison two years later in February of 2021. Hasél refused to voluntarily turn himself in, instead issuing a public statement and barricading himself among supporters inside Leida University. Riot police fought their way into the university and took him into custody on February 16th. His arrest and the underlying anger felt among a large segment of mostly young people in Catalunya and throughout the Spanish state led to almost a week of rioting especially in Barcelona, but also in Madrid, Valencia, the Basque Country and smaller cities like Vic, Iruñea (Pamplona), Lleida and Granada.

The widespread nature and strength of the rioting surprised many among the Spanish status quo, however it is clear that a tension has been building for quite some time as the Spanish state continues to expose and even flaunt its authoritarian nature.

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Don’t Blame Tories For This One! by Les May

EARLIER this year the Northern Voices carried an article which drew attention to the fact that the average daily number of new Covid 19 infections was beginning to rise, ('The Fat Lady Still Isn’t Singing' 16 August). Later in the month a second article drew attention to the fact that the increase in the daily number of new infections was continuing and that it could not be accounted for by the increase in testing, (Don’t You Know There’s A War On? 27 August).

Prior to the second article the daily number of new infections had been increasing slowly; it took some 50 days for the average number of new infections each day to double from 550 to 1100. After 27 August the number of new cases each day doubled from 1100 to 2200 in only thirteen days, and it doubled yet again in the next 15 days. In other words the pandemic in the UK had entered the ‘exponential phase’ with the daily number new infections doubling about every fortnight.

In the last week or so the picture has changed considerably. The time taken for the number of new infections to double has fallen to about nine days. This 5 day decrease in the time taken for the daily number of new infections to double might not seem very significant, but it is!

The average number of new infections over the past seven days is 10,500. In one month, 28 days, the daily number of new infections would double twice, first to 21,000 after a fortnight then to 42,000 after a month if the doubling time were still 14 days. With a doubling time of 9 days the number of new infections would double three times; first to 21,000 after nine days, to 42,000 after 18 days and to 84,000 after 27 days. This is NOT a prediction that there will be 80,000 cases a day in one month’s time: it is what COULD happen unless something is done to slow down or preferably halt the spread of the virus.

The ‘Track and Trace’ system may be shambolic as is the failure in the last few days to accurately report the number of new cases, but these are not in themselves the reason we are seeing 10,000+ new cases a day. I am a lifelong Labour voter, but I am not going to blame Johnson for the fact that the time taken for the number of new cases each day to double has shortened in the past week or so. The only way to halt the spread of the virus is to meet as few people as possible, wear a mask in any indoor space, physically distance yourself from other people wherever you are and decontaminate your hands, and anything that other people may have touched, by washing. Neither Johnson nor any other Tory in the land can do this for us. It is up to us.

Appendix

The figures for doubling time for new cases and daily deaths were obtained from the daily figures published by the Government. The method used was first to calculate each day the average number of new cases during the past seven days. This is commonly known as the ‘rolling average’. This eliminates the weekend effect where reported numbers are lower on Saturday and Sunday, then higher the following Monday.

The doubling time can be found by counting the number of days for the number of new infections to double directly from the rolling average. I prefer to calculate the logarithm to the base two of the rolling average. That way every time the number before the decimal point (the characteristic) increases by ‘1’, we know the number of infections each day has doubled.

Levelling The Gradient

by Les May

A COUPLE of weeks ago Kirsty Wark, the presenter of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme Newsnight, introduced an item which was supposed to deal with the question of discrimination in Britain using as an example the fact that there ‘weren’t many black CEOs’ (Chief Executive Officers). This intro told us little about whether there really is discrimination, and a lot about Wark’s priorities.

The assumption that you can lump all black, brown, Asian people together and label them BAME is a favourite modus operandi of armchair sociologists and media pundits.  This lazy approach to avoid thinking more deeply is akin to what has been called the ‘ecological fallacy’.  One example of this is the assumption that if one group is found to have, say a higher average income than another, then all members of the first group will have higher incomes than anyone in the second group. This is clearly nonsense.  Some individuals in the second group will be doing very nicely thank you and have incomes which are much higher than many of the people in either of the groups.   I have little doubt that Wark is significantly more wealthy than a very large number of white and non-white people alike.  She certainly has more power and influence.

By concentrating on single issues the questions raised by the huge inequalities in income, wealth, power and status we experience in the UK get ignored.  People like Wark give no sign of wanting to disturb the status quo and the hierarchies it fosters.  Without exploring the variation in income etc within BAME and white population we can never be sure that we are not mistaking differences caused by inequality as being caused by discrimination.

Is the observation, and at the moment it is just an observation, that people in the BAME population seem to be disproportionately affected by Covid 19 disease due to the factors which also disadvantage many of the white population, such as huge differences in income, wealth etc?  Asking this does not exclude the possibility that it results from discrimination, cultural norms or the prevalence of morbidities caused by so called ‘lifestyle’ factors such as diet and exercise, which in turn may themselves be a reflection of differences in wealth.

There is little appetite in the UK for recognising the effects of our very unequal society on the lives of our citizens, irrespective of their skin colour.  Even when studies to examine the impact of inequality are done, their findings are ignored. And it’s not just the Tories who are wilfully blind.  In February two of the candidates for the Labour leadership felt that a Jewish pressure group and a ‘trans’ pressure group needed their public support, but when the Marmot review which looked at differences in health outcomes appeared later in the month it had zero impact on the campaign.

The media gave prominence to only one finding; that ‘Female life expectancy declined in the most deprived 10 percent of neighbourhoods’ and ignored both the large disparity in life expectancy (LE) between people of higher and people of lower economic and social status, and that, irrespective of economic status women tend to live longer than men. (see page 18, Figure 2.4) reported in the review. (my emphasis).

http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/marmot-review-10-years-on/the-marmot-review-10-years-on-full-report.pdf

These disparities also exist with regard to the disability free life expectancy (DFLE), i.e. the number of years of life someone will have free from disability.  The review referred to these differences as forming a ‘social gradient’.

What the review showed was that in England, the difference in life expectancy at birth between the least deprived 10% of the population and the most deprived 10% was more than 9 years for men and more than 7 years for women.  Life expectancy at birth for men living in the most deprived areas in England was 74 years, compared with 83 years in the least deprived areas; the corresponding figures for women were 79 and 86 years in 2016-18. (see pages 15-17, figures 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3) in the review.

With regard to disabilities in later life the review said, ‘The social gradient in disability-free life expectancy is steeper than the gradient in life expectancy.  As a result, people living in areas with more disadvantage not only expect to live a shorter life, but also to spend more of that shorter life with a limiting long-term illness.’ (my emphasis)

The effect of ongoing and future rises in the age at which people become eligible to receive a state pension (SPA) will be felt most strongly by those of lower economic status (aka ‘the least well off’).  Only people in the least deprived 20—30% of areas will reach SPA before they can expect to develop a disability. Those in the more deprived areas will spend years with a disability before they reach SPA.

The Marmot review simply referred to ‘people’; not ‘black’ people, not ‘brown’ people, not ‘minority ethnic’ people, just people.  There seems to be no data on differences in life expectancy between these groups and ‘white’ people which are free of the influence of the socio-economic characteristics of the areas in which they live, i.e. the ‘social gradient’.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the differences in life expectancy (LE) and disability free life expectancy (DFLE), which show a clear gradient with socio-economic status, will be equally applicable to these groups also.   Getting a few more ‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘ethnic’ faces around boardroom tables will have no positive impact on the life chances of the people who happen to have the same skin colour.

We have heard a lot in recent weeks about ‘flattening the curve’.  When we know that there is a socio-economic gradient which means that women and men in affluent areas have a life expectancy at birth which is 7-9 years longer than those in poor areas, then I would suggest we direct our collective effort to ‘levelling the gradient’.

Obsessing over ‘race’, to the exclusion of all other considerations is a form of identity politics which allows people, who by any reasonable measure are privileged, to pose and be seen as, victims.   This comment is equally applicable to other forms of identity politics.   I would suggest that it is the inequalities in the UK of income, wealth and power which should be the main focus of attention for those of us who see ourselves as being ‘of the Left’ and not the politics of identity.  This would benefit far more people than a narrow focus on skin colour, sex, gender or preferred sexual partner.

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Tories take Monkey Town in the North!

 This is the story of a small, south-east Lancashire town called Heywood.   A place that is also rather affectionately (or disparagingly) known as 'Monkey Town’.

Old Heywood postcard.

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LAST NIGHT the Tory Party beat the Labour Party's incumbent, Liz McInnes, for the Heywood & Middleton constituency in Greater Manchester  to become the constituency’s first ever Tory MP, on a disastrous night for Labour nationally. 

The Tory victor, Mr Clarkson, agreed that national issues like Brexit likely contributed to his victory.

He said:  'It was a combination of factors. No result is about just one thing,

'Brexit was  an issue on the doorstep, but also people didn’t like Jeremy Corbyn - they didn’t want him to be Prime Minister - and that put a lot of people off voting Labour. A lot of people stayed at home.'

The former MP Liz McInnes, who had been MP for the constituency since 2014, remained at the count until the very end, putting on a brave face following the results, which saw the Conservatives receive 20,453 votes.  Ms McInnes came second with 19,790 votes.

The seat has, up until now, always been held by Labour.

This year, 47,641 ballots were issued, and 153 votes were rejected.  The new MP, Mr Clarkson was elected with a majority vote of just 663 votes, in one of the lowest turnouts in recent years.

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McDonnell promises a 4-day working week and affordable homes - so why is Labour unpopular?

John McDonnell - Labour Shadow Chancellor

DESPITE having a British Conservative government that is led by a pathological liar - who even misled the Queen - a chancer, and someone who is clearly out of his depth and unfit to be the Prime Minister of the UK, some opinion polls have given the Tories a 15-point lead over Labour. One opinion poll went so far as saying that Jeremy Corbyn was the "most unpopular opposition leader of the past 45 years." 

The survey by Ipsos MORI, for the Evening Standard, gave the Labour leader a net satisfaction rating of -60, with just 16% of voters pleased with him and 76% unhappy. According to the Evening Standard, Corbyn is now more unpopular than the former Labour leader Michael Foot.

This weeks shambolic Labour conference, is unlikely to boost Corbyn's ratings with the electorate. At various times the Labour Party conference has descended into chaos, as Unison hack, Wendy Nichols, the Labour NEC chair, struggled to maintain order. Delegates were furious when a motion supporting 'Remain' was rejected on a show of hands and Nichols refused to hold a full paper ballot. She initially thought the motion to 'Remain' had been carried until she was corrected by Labour's general secretary Jennie Formby, who insisted it hadn't been carried. Earlier in the Week, Nichols had provoked  a row when she remitted a motion back, in spite of delegates saying they hadn't a clue what the motion was about because it wasn't on the order papers.


I almost  pissed myself laughing when Labour's Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, referred to Labour's Shadow Economic Secretary, 'Blairite', Jonathan Reynolds - a protégé of both Lord Mandelson and 'work-for-your- dole', James Purnell - as "taking socialism into the heart of the city." Yet, McDonnell outlined a range of Labour policies that one would have thought would have been hugely popular with the working people:-


A £10 minimum wage from 16-up; a ban on zero hour contracts; a 32-hour, 4-day working week within the next decade, without loss of pay; 20% of company shares to be held by workers; restoration of trade union rights; workers right to take effect from day one; stop the roll-out of Universal Credit - not abolish it; personal care free at the point of use in England; build a million affordable homes and give free prescriptions.

Why Labour is flagging in the opinion polls is indeed curious given that a paper like the Financial Times, recently warned that Labour wanted to pick the pockets of the rich and to put it into the pocket of the workers. Likewise, the Tories are in complete disarray over Europe, and up shit creek without a paddle. Many of Labour's policies like re-nationalizing the railways and utilities are extremely popular with the electorate and not many of us are going to lose much sleep over public schools losing their charitable status, as they aren't charities  or even public schools, as most of the public couldn't afford to get in. However, one suspects that Labour may have promised far too much and if we leave the EU, many of their policies might not be affordable because of the negative impact leaving would have on the British economy. 

Not all the blame is solely down to Jeremy Corbyn - an ardent Brexiteer - who has never enjoyed the support of many of the Labour 'Blairite' right in Parliament, who have sought to bring him down from day one and would much rather have a Conservative government than a Labour one led by  Corbyn.

None of this in-fighting and intrigue plays well with the voters, even if some of Labour's policies are popular.  I suspect that if there was an election tomorrow, the Tories under Boris Johnson, could get re-elected but possibly without a working majority. Johnson, a cad and scoundrel, will position himself as the saviour of Britain who wants to implement the will of the majority of British people who want to leave the EU. The next General Election will fought on the basis of the people versus an intransigent parliament.

Although most people haven't a clue what Brexit means, Boris Johnson does have a clue. It is about cutting taxes for the rich and turning British workers into doormats for billionaires. It is about a race to the bottom and having a bonfire of regulations that cover such things as employment rights,  food standards, health and safety, the environment and even the NHS.

The Politics of Delusion

by Les May

I VOTE Labour. In the referendum I voted to remain in the EU, but accepted the result.   At no time have I felt it necessary to criticise Labour’s policy about Brexit. It has confounded the ‘scribblers’ in the media whose criticism has had to be limited to grumbling about its lack of clarity. How nice it would have been for them if Labour had declared its support for, or opposition to, a further referendum.  They would have been able to look forward to lots of ‘exclusive’ briefings from Labour MPs in favour of or against the policy, as the equivalent of open warfare gripped the party. It has not happened.

Credit for this not happening is not due to Corbyn alone.  Those seen as ‘big names’ in the party who do not entirely agree with his stance, John McDonnell, Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer, plus those Labour MPs which some sections of the media would find more congenial as Labour leader, e.g. Yvette Cooper, Hillary Benn and Stephen Kinnock, have been muted in their criticism.

Criticism has tended to come from Labour MPs eager to convince us that if only it would adopt their preferred strategy of supporting a second referendum and campaigning to remain in the EU, the party’s poll ratings would magically improve.

What people who believe this forget is that Labour does not have a majority in Parliament. Labour is essentially a bystander with no power to influence the decisions of the next prime minister, who at this moment is being selected by 160,000 Tory party members in no way representative of the wider population and who seem happy to trash the economy, the union with Scotland and tear up the international treaty which gave guarantees to the people of Ireland in a single minded pursuit of leaving the EU.

If Labour did adopt such a strategy it would have the support of the Welsh and Scottish nationalists, LibDems, MPs who identify themselves as Independent and some Tories.   Even if collectively the different groupings could muster a majority, constitutionally there appears to be no mechanism by which Parliament can prevent a Johnson or Hunt led government forcing us to leave the EU without a deal. To believe that Labour declaring itself in favour of a second referendum and that it will campaign to remain in the EU will in some way influence what happens when a Johnson or Hunt led government takes over is the politics of delusion.

The people who believe this are not alone in being deluded. Corbyn, Hunt and Johnson all share their own delusions.  They believe that if they become Prime Minister they will be able to negotiate with the EU to produce something that is different from the deal that was rejected three times by Parliament.  Corbyn has already tried to sweet talk the Irish government to no avail. I doubt whether the other 27 countries of the EU are exactly quaking in the boots at the prospect of meeting Boris or Jeremy who both seem to think that threatening to leave with ‘no deal’ is going to wring some major concession from the EU.

Labour’s worst nightmare has to be that blame will be dumped on it for the chaos that will follow if Hunt or Johnson have to ‘put their money where their mouth is’ and the UK leaves the EU without a deal.  Labour will be accused of doing ‘too little, too late’ by people who don’t want to acknowledge that its ability to significantly affect whether the UK leaves the EU after the referendum was always limited. Labour’s best option now is probably to look to a damage limitation strategy. 

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Tories Adopt 'Rana' Strategy!

by Les May

THE ballot amongst Tory members about who should become the next leader of the party descended into farce today when it came to light that many members had been sent two ballot papers.  This mode of running elections is known as ‘The Rana Strategy’ after Rochdale councillor Faisal Rana (a.k.a. ‘Two Votes’) who in the 2018 local government fraudulently applied for and used two votes.

There is however one noticeable difference between how the Tories and Rochdale’s Labour leadership have handled this matter.  For the Tories a shamefaced Iain Duncan Smith admitted what had happened and party members have been warned that anyone who votes twice will be summarily ejected from the party. In Rochdale the leader just about managed to express his ‘disappointment’ in Rana and did not ask for his immediate resignation.

Oh the shame of it! Labour gets a lesson in decency from the Tories.

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Culture, Coffee and Socialism

by Les May

I HAVE voted Labour all my life.  The reason is simple. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s I benefited directly from two things the 1945 Labour Government put in place; the NHS and the 1949 National Assistance Act which kept our family out of poverty when my father was hospitalised more or less permanently. It was policies like these and not headline grabbing policies like Public Ownership which had the biggest impact on peoples lives. What a Labour government had to do in 1945 was obvious and it did it.

But in my lifetime the Tories have re-invented themselves at least three times. The rejection of Churchill in the 1945 election was so complete that they had to accept and work with the changes Labour had made. The result was Butskellism, perhaps more properly called ‘The Post War Consensus’ (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_consensus ).

Then we had hard nosed Thatcherism which amongst other things saw unemployment as a useful policy lever and was a mix of economic and social conservatism. Remember her enthusiasm for Clause 28

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28 .

The result was that the Tories became ‘The Nasty Party’. By sleight of hand David Cameron tried to shake off this tag with a mix of social liberalism, same sex marriage, and economic conservatism in the form of austerity and attacks on the poorest groups in society.

Labour’s attempt at re-invention gave us the Blair years. Now the search is on for how to re-invent Labour yet again. But things are more complicated now. There are those of us who see the Labour project as one of promoting economic and social justice, and there are those, I’m not one of them, who see being ‘of the Left’ as fighting, usual vicarious, battles against racism, sexism, homophobia, (add in your favourite -isms or -phobias here). If, like many newspaper columnists, you are of the latter persuasion remember how Cameron managed to hide the vicious policies of George Osborn behind a veneer of social liberalism.

I’ve told you where I stand but if you want to feel part of shaping Labour’s ‘soul’ and live in the area, you might like to visit ‘Seriously Red’, at Bury’s Socialist Cafe ‘Ground Up’. It’s hosted by Bury Momentum with Bury South Socialists, 7-9pm every third Tuesday of the month and promises debates, campaigns, culture and coffee.

You’ll find Ground Up at 8 Market Street, Bury, just opposite the Peel Monument.

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